It was good to see Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware adding a little class and diversity.

Was that really a flash of the pitch-meeting for the Namor movie?

Always in search of the underbelly, 60 Minutes had to push for Stan Lee bitterness. Although seeing Avi Arad bullshit with a straight face that the old creators are getting a fair shake was troubling. "With great power..."

Would have liked to see more about the actual comic books, the art form, the mystique- and less Arad sitting on a pile of gold like an old evil dragon.

There was also very little analysis about why comics are hot in Hollywood ("They make money" was all we got, or is that it?) or the current paradox with comic book sales historically being so down. Superheroes are "back"- Why? And/But in a very different medium. Why? That's the story.

The stock footage for every mainstream story was there- the "embarassed to read comics" story, the "Spidey appealed to losers" bit, the obligatory dressed-up conventioneer.

Overall, it was a good quickie exposure for the medium. "We're storytellers... of the heroic ideal."

Marvel has rosy 3Q [Pulse]
Publishing was up. They're finally getting the licensing big bucks. Toys boomed after years of being a huge drag. Moving that movie money around. Still lots of debt.
Journalista has an analysis.

Critiquing critique [Journey Into Comics]
The ancient mantra of the web: "Dude, don't just say it sucks. Tell us why you thought it sucked."

Marvel Universe: The End [Newsarama]
Jim Starlin's going to squeeze more out of the Thanos stone. At least Doctor Strange usually gets some good treatment in his cosmic stories. The Akhenaten villain sounds interesting.

Neilalien had a great time at the first installment of the Superheroes In The 60's: Comics & Counterculture lecture series at CUNY by the caped Arlen Schumer. Last night was Carmine Infantino goodness. Next week is the big one, Doc fans! Steve Ditko. (Some other artist named Kirby will also be covered.) See you there!

Neilalien's feeling that his Transformers nostalgia trip might be ending. He's primarily interested in G1 stuff- the G1 mini-series is at an end, and he's not picking up any of the other books. Season 2 on DVD is going to kick butt- he'll certainly rent that for a couple weeks when it comes out. But that basically covers all interest at this point. Neilalien will probably be blogging less about Transformers in the future. Although, he's threatened that before- and then those vehicles turn into big robots and out comes the kid again.

Very interesting speculation that Dr. Strange was inspired by the 01963 movie The Raven [rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe (Google Groups)]
"Stan Lee mentions an old Mutual radio show, "Chandu the Magician," to which he listened as a kid, as a source of inspiration for Dr. Strange in "Origins of Marvel Comics."

ICv2 has lots of retailers responding to Jemas/no-overprint/Must Haves right now. Go check it out if you haven't burned your eyeballs out over it already.

More hackage: Looks like the entire ViewAskew universe is down (which includes Comics Newsarama).

Blogger's been hacked again. Neilalien stopped storing his server password on there after the last hackage. Typing in the password with every 'Publish' is a pain, but Blogger is nice, and there are much bigger pains. Better go change your server password now, Blogger fans!

If we can't show the Brooklyn Bridge getting blown up in our comics, then the terrorists have won! [Millar defends Ultimate War images; via Newsarama]
More: Joe Quesada responds to Ultimate War explosion [Pulse]
Ultimate War: insensitive oppportunism or "Get over it!" or writing about the real world? U-Decide!

Boy, did Transformers G1 #6 suck!
(No, it didn't, really. It was okay, not great [see this review]. Neilalien's just being nice to his non-North American readers who'll never see the series finale after buying #1-5. As reported in this week's Rage, Hasbro has informed Diamond they were not authorized to sell any Transformers stuff outside N.A, effective immediately. Oops!)

Neilalien didn't follow it all, but he thinks there's also a long item in the above Rage link highlighting why comic book creators, the internet, lawyers and young girls should never, ever mix.

DocWatch: A quick search of Joe Quesada's Q+A Answer Archive on his message board reveals nothing new. Just this older exchange: Q. Any Dr. Strange coming up? A. Perhaps. Don't break out the champagne. But it's better than a terse No. Unless it's just mean teasing. That would be worse.

Jemas gets all the attention he ever could hope for by having a character in his crappy comic Marville #2 do something politically-incorrect and insinuate the 'n' word (and bash Mexicans too) [open letter from Jemas responding to criticism: Newsarama, Pulse; Pulse got some reactions from Black creators]
Note Neilalien's phraseology. It's just a stunt to get attention. Don't be the politically-correct police and make his "point" for him (Marville has a "theme"?). It's more a response- barely an apology. And "crappy comic." Very crappy. But in Jemas' defense: It's a character he writes who says it (almost), not him.

If your first name is Peter, your last name is Parker, or full name is Peter Parker, you can get the Spider-Man DVD cheap [Half.com promotion found via Pulse]
Man, it sucks to be Parker Posey right now.

This new mini-series on Bast from the Sandman mythos sounds incredible! [Newsarama]
First Y: The Last Man, and now this. Two good Vertigo books? Neilalien had better go get his shots now.

Marvel's Avi Arad named one of the most powerful people in entertainment by Entertainment Weekly [Splash]
Let's use some of that power to get a good Dr. Strange movie on the silver screen!

There's some other recent interesting threads on Comicon.com:
Heidi vs. Jemas: The title kinda says it all, right? Has some good bits in it, including an open letter to Marvel brass about the no-overprint policy. A debate about grammar rounds things out.
Unbiased news coverage?: Or maybe this title is more your fancy?
What, no weeping for the Warren Ellis Forum?: Neilalien hadn't caught that solid Dave Cummings post.

Neilalien's ended up adding quite a bit of discussion text at that Pulse article he linked to yesterday. He hasn't had his knickers in this much of a bunch since the Seven Spheres War debate on the Defenders Message Board! Neilalien just thinks, quite strongly, that people who style themselves as journalists/reporters should not also write opinion columns. There's a reason why it's clearly separated in other news media- because when they do, crap like this happens: (1) Jemas was able to call out Heidi, and (2) the news we got wasn't complete. Ah well, not the greatest text or most important thing in the world (snipers, anyone?). But if it's a little pit-bull voice in a small chorus that stormed the creator/retailer/columnist/reporter insular elite overlap back room and got a tiny (if still insufficient) positive policy change on Pulse, then it's good. And heck, Neilalien can't appear any worse in public than Mr. Jemas often seems to do. Neilalien: Media critic? Guardian of journalistic ideals? Or gasket blower? U-Decide!

Last week there was news that Conan the Barbarian had new owners. Neilalien didn't consider the item linkworthy here, but something about it stuck in his feeble brain. Now he knows why. This ICv2 blurb reminds him that the now defunct Stan Lee Media was the previous owner of Conan. How ownership was transferred "isn't clear."

Shrink-wrap probs with Marvel Encyclopedia? [Usenet post]
Neilalien can think of one problem with the shrink wrap: can't check out the Dr. Strange entry, if there even is one...

Help, Spider-Man stranded off U.S. West Coast! [Yahoo! News (link will die quickly) via World Famous Comics' News]
3,000 Spidey replicas for the DVD movie release are stuck due to the West Coast's port strike.

New Fantagraphics 244-page hardcover about Steve Ditko slated for June 02003! [Newsarama]
This was announced on the Ditko-L Yahoo Group two weeks ago. That'll teach Neilalien to check there more often. Anyway- what a fantastic item! Ditko has long deserved a book like this. This interview with Blake Bell is quite good. Can't wait for Steve Ditko: The Mysterious Traveler.

DocWatch: Bill Jemas posted to the Joe Quesada Message Board this week that "Tom Brevoort is cooking up some great new books on some great old characters. Tom's fast too - look for the launches early next year." If Doc ain't part of this, Neilalien's going to be hitting the bottle pretty hard.

Marvel investors left holding worthless paper once again [Splash]
Please, no comments from the peanut gallery about what kind of paper Marvel comic book readers are holding.

New comic book weblog found! [Flat Earth]
Seems new to Neilalien anyway. Sounds like it's (re-)started in reaction to the Barbelith Collective shut-down. It has potential- hopefully S. can stick with it. Growl- Blogspot archive links can be so flaky, can't link to specific stuff today. Over there right now is a good tracking of that whole McFarlane/Gaiman/Spawn/Miracleman affair (Neilalien doesn't seem too interested, but it's in trial now so maybe interest will rise) and an awesome MODOK link.

Coming to a 'Forgotten' Child's Rescue [ABCNews.com]
"Alonzo Washington created Omega Man 10 years ago to give African-American readers a positive, socially conscious black superhero, which he said had been lacking in the comic book industry. Omega Man has tackled issues such as drug abuse, gang violence, black-on-black violence and racism over the years. It seems only natural that the superhero and Washington, who has been a community activist in his resident Kansas City since he was 16, would take on missing children."

Comic book artist leaps into next venue [Business Journal of Jacksonville]
Don Perlin fights against the video games using the Stan Lee formula (teenagers with problems).

Religious seminar shows how Spider-Man and Superman are Christ figures [Bridgevillestar.com]
It's open to interpretation.

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